As Sweet as Honey

34




They went south, getting an early start to beat the traffic, or at the very least, avoid gridlock. They drove toward Craywick, while Oscar squealed every time they passed sheep. They stopped once for lunch, admiring the countryside, exploring two churches, and ate cheese-and-pickle sandwiches at a local pub. By the time they reached their hotel toward dusk, they turned in, skipping dinner. They woke to the sunlight drifting into the room through the lace-covered curtains and a racket of birdsong. It was chilly enough to light a fire, but instead, they wrapped themselves in quilts and ate breakfast on the terrace, slathering butter on hot toast, and drinking steaming cups of coffee.

“Let’s live here, Simon.”

“Okay,” he said, trying to feed Oscar mashed banana. He refused it. “Did you know birds macerate food for their young?”

“I mean it … one day. And yes, I thought everyone knew that.”

“Oh, really? Everyone?” he said, trying to feed her the banana and kiss her at the same time.


They explored the town on borrowed bicycles, visiting the pond that boasted enough ducks (that is, more than none) to cheer Oscar. Nearby, they stopped at a used-book store, which featured books cozily housed on wooden shelves, with the scent of lavender-honey tea permeating the air. Round tables held displays of local works and photographs from a time past. A vase of roses, anemones, and dahlias was next to the cash register, where a ginger cat was sleeping. The owner, Lucia, welcomed them, and offered them biscuits.

“I’m having my tea anyway.” She said this with a mysterious smile, murmuring something about Jaipur, about Udaipur. “And when I was a girl,” she continued, “I had a crush on Raj Kapoor. My name is Italian, but I grew up in France, and we watched all the Indian movies!”

So they had sat on faded upholstered chairs, drinking hot tea in big white cups, dunking biscuits like old friends. Lucia had owned the place for thirty years with her partner, she said, sounding almost surprised. Her smile was broad; this was what a successful woman looked like, thought Meterling, leaning back against the crochet headrest. Later, humming “Aawara,” Lucia wrapped their purchases up in paper, while Meterling took a last look to see if by some strange coincidence she would find Neela Chandrashekar’s work. There was a selection of works by Indian and British-Indian authors, but most were the household names. As they said goodbye to Lucia, she reminded them to get an early start the next day.


“Where are we now, Simon?”

They had followed a trail and now stood in a meadow, wild with weed and bramble. Trees edged it in the distance. Some sheep grazed in the distance, too.

“Won’t the owner mind we’re on his land, Simon?”

“I think we’re okay to walk. Come, I’ll take Oscar.”

“It’s so peaceful.”

The sun was out, and unlike in town, it blazed bright. Meterling took off her shoes and socks to feel the cold, damp earth. It was packed tight, dormant.

“What do you see in the distance, Meti?”

“A house.”

“Your house.”

“My house?”

“Your house. Why wait any longer?”

“I don’t know. It holds so much story, you understand … past lives. Archer’s life, Susan’s—yours, too.”

“Only for the holidays, really. Shall we take a look? Dispel some ghosts?”

“Don’t joke, Simon. I feel as if I’ve received something I was not meant to have.”

They stood in the fields, her three fields. She wondered what the gardens looked like. Squeezing Simon’s hand, she wondered if it was time after all to look. A slight wind stirred the grass around them. She would not plant rye, she reminded herself with a start.

They returned to the car to drive up the gravel road to the house. It really was a manor, run-down, with boarded-up windows. Large stone Ali Baba pots holding overgrown boxwood and autumn leaves and pine needles flanked the shallow steps to the door, whose knocker was an incongruous elephant’s head.

“Ganesha,” mused Simon, as he tried the key he drew from his pocket.

The old house had good bones, built in 1770, a classic Georgian with eccentric touches added in the 1900s. One such touch was the Corinthian columns that acted as decorative balconies over the second-storey windows; another was the cupola, added as an afterthought, with a widow’s walk that looked out over the fields.

Sheets had been thrown over most of the furniture, and the uncovered ones were hideously threadbare. Mice must nest amid the stuffing, thought Meterling, gingerly making her way through the rooms. A staircase, thick with dust, led upstairs, but Simon cautioned her against exploring it, citing safety. Nevertheless, giving him the baby, Meterling went up. Bedrooms and bathrooms and studies, each filled with a scent of damp and discard. The windows caught her attention, large ones that provided views of the fields, of the trees and sky. She could imagine us—that is, Sanjay, Rasi, and me—lounging about during country rainstorms, reading on the window seats, Pibs curled up against our feet.

The staircase felt solid as she descended, the wood thick with dust and grime.

“A place for dreaming, for dreams,” she said.

“I’m surprised no one’s squatting in it,” said Simon. “It’s been empty for years. There were tenants for a while, but not for a decade at least. Hard to believe, isn’t it? It’s like a mirage, really.”

“ ‘Squatting’?”

“Living illegally.”

“I wouldn’t blame them. This big old house needs people in it.”

“What do you think?”

“It would take an awful lot of work.”

“You could have a garden. You could invite Mina and the other kids to come stay over their holidays.”

“You’ve thought about it.”

“It’s here, and it’s yours. It’s the one thing immigrants never have, land and property. It’s what leads to all the feelings of inadequacy and trespass.”

“What about your job?”

“I could commute. I could even stay in London four days—”

“While I am a kind of house widow, your paramour in the country, hidden from view while you batch it up in the city?”

“Meterling!”

“I’m sorry.” She flushed. “I want to live with you, Simon, not in a big, drafty house that’s full of ghosts.”

“Of course we’ll live together. You can sell the house, get rid of it.”

“I wonder if we could exorcise the ghosts?”

“What?”

“If we do keep it, I mean, do you think we could get a priest to come and bless the house?”

“Why not? I knew an Indian family who bought a house and had a ceremony with a cow. A farmer lent them a cow.”

“The cow represents prosperity, so you need it at a house blessing. There are farmers around, it seems.”

“So what do you think? We could easily borrow a cow.”

“I don’t know. Simon, I think I see—”

But at that moment, Oscar began to cry lustily, and if Meterling were to confess to Simon that she was visited by Archer’s ghost, it would have to wait for another day.


Traffic caught them. What they had missed on their way in held them fiercely on their way back. Well, traffic—you may as well enjoy it, there is nothing to be done about it. Simon was one of those rare men who were unbothered by waiting, because, he said, it was out of their control. If one was going to be delayed, then so be it. Meterling was glad she had packed apples and cheese, and had tea in a thermos. They unfastened their seat belts and listened to the odd bursts of car horns.

Oscar began to fuss, and Meterling quickly got into the backseat to change him.

“Simon, did you ever think this is the way it would be, back when you were twenty-one?”

“You mean nappies and traffic and you?”

“Oscar and traffic and me.”

“You do know ‘nappies’ is code for Oscar? In fact, maybe we should change his name. Nappies Forster. Or better, Diapers Forster—that’s a billionaire’s name for you. He could support us in style in our old age.”

Getting no reply from Meterling, Simon added, “It couldn’t have turned out better, for me, because I’m in this, all of it, Oscar and traffic and you.”

The cars began to move again. In the other lane, they saw a row of policemen sweep away the glass slowly from the scene of an accident. They reached London in three and a half hours.